


Oh, did you know you brought me home?

by Unclesteeb



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, paint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 13:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7575226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unclesteeb/pseuds/Unclesteeb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The paint’s supposed to go where?” Sam asks hesitantly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, did you know you brought me home?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt. 
> 
> Your story experience will be highly, highly increased if you listen to Zero 7 [ Somersault ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLoHayXLKCQz) which is not only where the title is from but the best Samsteve song ever, maybe.

“The paint’s supposed to go _where_?” Sam asks hesitantly. 

“On your body.” Steve says with a happily little smile. He’s sitting on Sam’s hips, straddling him. The light in their apartment is bright with the warm afternoon. Steve looks so cheerful, a little mischievous and boyish. 

Sam can see it, looking at Steve right now with his happy smile and his heels tucked under Sam’s knees like his core muscles aren’t quite strong enough to hold him up alone. He can see that behind Captain America there is and always will be skinny little Steve Rogers, a young guy just trying to live his life. Sam feels his facial features soften into something that probably looks dopey and lovey. He can never help himself when Steve looks like that. 

He giggles, “My body? Is that safe?”

“Come on!” Steve cajoles, not losing that smile. He slaps Sam’s bare chest playfully. “Haven't you ever heard of body paint?”

“Nope.” Sam tells him honestly. 

“Wow. And I'm supposed to be the old man out of time! Come on on babe.” He tilts his head, chews on the corner of his smirk and bats his eyelashes a little at Sam. The fucker knows he's cute. “I want to paint on you. I'll make you look oh so pretty.”

“You don't need paint to do that. I'm already pretty.” 

Steve scrunches his nose and leans down to give Sam a little kiss. “I know that. Please?” He pouts those red little lips and Sam sighs.

“Fine.” He lets his body go lax. “Do your worst.”

Steve laughs, full on. “I knew you'd come around.” He gives Sam another little kiss and sets to work.

Sam watches him. He sees Steve staring at him, hard and concentrated as he planned. Sam watches as creativity takes over Steve’s mind and pushes out everything else. His shoulders slump in a little. His mouth screws up. Sam can’t help but be awed at how small he looks, how innocent, how young. Steve dips his pointer finger in bright yellow paint. He glances up at Sam quickly, eyes full of nothing but love.

He starts out slow, using a gentle touch to paint on Sam’s chest. The paint is cold and it makes Sam inhale sharply. Sam lets his eyes flutter shut and just lets himself feel. Steve’s touch is gentle but firm. He anchors Sam’s hips still with his strong left hand and continues to paint whatever design he is painting into Sam’s chest. Sam can hear Steve’s slow, calm breathing. He feels the loss of Steve’s warm touch when Steve removes his finger to add more paint. Sam lets himself get a little overwhelmed by sensation. He feels his pulse quicken and breaks the silence, drops a joke into the moment before it can weigh him down too much, “You're not making me into some dumb animal are you?” 

Steve chuckles and Sam hears him uncap a different color paint. “No. I'm making you pretty, remember?” His left hand leaves Sam’s hip to softly caress Sam’s face briefly before returning. “Keep your eyes closed.” 

Sam sighs as Steve’s finger returns, but on the other side of his chest this time. Sam feels Steve’s finger make different designs than on the other side. He breathes through his nose and enjoys the gentle glide of it on his skin. 

Steve pauses briefly and hums softly to himself, thinking, before taking his thumb and pointer finger and spreading them apart on Sam’s skin to create whatever shape he is going for. Steve makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat as he admires his work. 

Sam’s left arm is warming from the drifting sunshine streaming through their apartment windows. He and Steve hadn't been living together long. Their apartment is in Brooklyn. Sam had been a little adamant about finding either a secure building or just going for it and buying a standalone home. He was always nervous about the prospect of two avengers living together and the trouble that it could cause. Sam worried himself almost sick thinking about the innocent casualties that living anywhere besides the tower. When Steve had asked Sam to come look at an apartment in the corner brownstone in a populated neighborhood Sam had been hesitant. Then they got inside. Steve’s mouth practically fell to the floor when he stepped into the place. The apartment was painted a warm cream color, with rich hardwood floors. It had gigantic, curved windows that spread sunlight through the entire apartment. Sam watched as tension drained from the lines of Steve’s shoulders. Sam watched his eyes sparkle. Sam watched his 100 year old boyfriend drop 70 years off his body in a second. When Steve had looked to him with pleading eyes it was all Sam could do but smile back and say yes. Steve had repaid him by doing all the heavy lifting by himself. Sam thought it was an excellent use of the super-serum.

Steve shifts over Sam’s hips. “Sam. You have the most beautiful skin.” He whispers the words sweetly. His paint-free hand leaves its position on Sam’s hip to travel up Sam’s sun-warmed left arm, caressing. The sun is shifting more now and Sam can feel it shining on his chest too.

“You're just saying that because your art’s on it.” Sam smiles.

“I'm serious!” Steve chuckles. "It's so soft. So beautiful. Just like the rest of you.”

Sam furrows his brow but doesn’t open his eyes. Steve lets out a long breath. He says, “I love you.” Sam listens as he opened a different color paint container and dips his finger in it. He lets it slide gently into Sam’s stomach now, creating a different picture. Sam’s breath hitches at the cold paint hitting a new spot. 

“God I love you too.”

After that Sam let himself drift off into the sensation, the sounds of loud Brooklyn below them, Steve’s slow breaths, his fingers, his warm hips and legs around him. He isn’t asleep but isn’t all there either. Nothing else exists right now but Steve and Sam and whatever artwork Steve is creating on him. Steve’s fingers draw over his entire torso, his shoulders, his arms. It’s a long while before Steve sighs loudly and untucks his heels from under Sam’s knees. 

“I think you're done.” Steve lets out, quietly, softly, bringing Sam back. 

Sam opens his eyes slowly, the sun is just starting to set and their apartment is being filled soft oranges, pinks and reds. Steve is kneeling in-between Sam’s thighs now. He has that boyish grin back on his face; looking at Sam like he is the only thing that exists in the universe even though they both knew that isn’t true, Sam and Steve had both been to space to fight after all. Sam let himself take it in, looks back at Steve the same exact way. They’re allowed little quiet moments like these sometimes. 

Steve’s face is illuminated by the sunset light. His blue eyes look warm in it, his skin looks golden. He looks like an angel surrounded by so much beautiful light and goodness. Maybe he really is one. 

Steve swallows, “Aren't you going to look?” He asks. They are both speaking so quietly, terrified that if they even talk too loudly the rest of the world would come rushing back in. 

Sam’s brown eyes don’t leave Steve’s. “I got a bit distracted,” He says. _You're beautiful_ , he wants to tell Steve. He cracks a little smile then does, taking Steve’s hand in his and sitting himself up so that they're impossibly close. He can feel Steve’s breath on his face. He rubs their noses together gently. “You're beautiful.” Sam says, “You're remarkable.”

Steve’s breath catches gently. He lets his eyes close. “No. It's you.” He says against Sam’s lips, so soft, so quiet. “It's you. It's always been you.” He catches Sam’s lips with his own slowly, sweetly. 

“Come on,” he says, smiling again after he's let go of Sam’s lips, eyes shining. “Come let me show you how beautiful you are.”

He stands and offers a hand to Sam to pull him up too. He leads them into their bedroom, fingers interlaced with Sam’s, to their full length mirror. Sam’s still too busy looking at Steve, his bare freckled back, the way the freckles lead up to his strong shoulders, his soft blonde hair at the nape of his neck.

Steve turns around before Sam can pry his eyes off of Steve and glance at himself in the mirror. His gaze softens immediately, his eyebrows lifting and creating a little divet between them, his pink lips parting just slightly. 

“You ready?” He asks, his deep voice still so soft. 

Sam nods.

Steve smiles brightly and covers his eyes. He shuffles Sam over so that he's in front of the mirror. “Okay,” he whispers right in Sam’s ear, hot breath ghosting on Sam’s skin, “open up.” He lifts his hands off of Sam’s eyes and Sam opens his up to look and Sam’s, he's-

Steve’s made him a _garden_. Covered him in flowers.

Sam lets out a gentle gasp and feels Steve press his body in tightly against his back, keeping him still. 

Steve’s painted bright yellow sunflowers over the right side of Sam’s chest. That’s what the yellow Sams saw at first was for. They surround his entire pectoral muscle and spread up to the shoulder. On the left side, over Sam’s heart he’s painted roses-blood red and without a trace of a thorn- safe. They intertwine gently with the sunflowers on the right side and bleed down into purple and pink lilies on the lower half of Sam’s left side. The lilies reach down and cover Sam’s navel, his strong stomach muscles. Opposite of them are blue larkspur, lifting themselves up from where they seem to have sprouted on Sam’s hips until they dance and meet up with the sunflowers on Sam’s chest. From the flowers on his chest and stomach grow strong green vines, reaching up and over Sam’s shoulders and down his biceps. There’s ivy leaves that interlock with orange honeysuckle on Sam’s arms. 

“See?” Steve whispers, “See how beautiful you are. So pretty you are.” He kisses Sam’s neck softly. “But you were right, you don’t need to be painted on to be beautiful. You always are. Always,” he promises. 

Sam’s breath is stuck in his throat. He doesn’t know what to say. “ _Steve_ ,” he says, like a prayer a thank you, a plead. 

“Baby, Sam, my Sam, my beautiful Sam.” Steve spins him around and walks him back a few steps so that his back is pressed up against the mirror. He looks into Sam’s eyes and sighs. “My beautiful, beautiful-” he cuts himself off by pressing a kiss to Sam’s mouth. 

Steve lets him go before pressing his own naked chest onto Sam’s. The paint's not dry all the way yet, Steve knows it too. He wants it on his skin, he wants them to match. He kisses Sam sweetly again before leaning away slightly, smiling down on himself. Sam’s garden has imprinted itself onto Steve’s chest and stomach. They’re a matched set, Steve’s light, flushed skin with the same artwork as Sam’s soft, brown skin. 

Steve wraps both his hands loosely around Sam’s neck and pulls their bodies flush again. He places a gentle kiss to the side of Sam’s mouth. “Let me see all of you.” he says. 

“Okay, yeah.” 

Steve brings Sam over to their bed, they’re going to ruin the white sheets with the paint but neither of them care one bit right now. Steve takes his time undressing Sam, using those big, talented artist hands to slide off Sam’s pants, kissing him the entire time, sliding his tongue in and out of Sam’s mouth. 

Sam wants Steve naked too, needs to feel him, so he slides Steve’s pants and boxers off quickly. Steve puts a leg in-between Sam’s so that their bodies are completely intertwined, spreading paint all over the both of them. 

It’s after, when a lot of the paint has been washed off by sweat or rubbed off on to the white sheets, that Sam and Steve find themselves lying down intertwined again. Sam brings his pointer finger up from its place on Steve’s chest and runs it gently down his nose, feeling the little bump from where it was broken before the serum. Steve’s eyes are closed, he’s not asleep, just enjoying everything. His lips twitch into a smile at the feeling of Sam’s finger. 

“It’s always been you, too.” Sam tells him. 

Steve’s eyes blink open and he smiles sleepily. “You’re the first home I’ve known in 70 years, you know that?”

Sam gives him a little smile in return. Steve wraps both arms around him, pulls him close.

He says, “Let’s get some sleep. We can clean up in the morning before we go save the world again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [ tumblr! ](unclesteeb.tumblr.com)


End file.
